


Captain Diaz and the Fortunate Five

by jazzfic



Category: Star Trek: Picard
Genre: Background Relationships, Crack, Gen, Holodecks/Holosuites, Humor
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-02-27
Updated: 2021-03-08
Packaged: 2021-03-18 05:15:47
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,048
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29728905
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jazzfic/pseuds/jazzfic
Summary: While attempting to make an adjustment to the settings of his holo-chateau (there was something just slightly off about the curtains), retired admiral Jean-Luc Picard finds a fragment of a holonovel. The question of who could have conceived this mangled monstrosity, and why, will occupy his every waking moment (well, for the afternoon, at least; it’s been a slow week).
Comments: 8
Kudos: 11





	1. What?

**Author's Note:**

> Crack!fic so inspired by a spiralling descent in discord chat about what would be the most awful names the holograms could have ended up with in canon (could still? Oh, let’s not go there). Plus... some very wrong candy hearts.
> 
> Chapter one of I don't know.

The clock on the wall is running slow. 

Picard puts his hands in his pockets and considers this philosophical quandary. Does time really matter if the thing itself is not actually here? The lag doesn’t worry him, only makes him pause. At the chateau – the real one – it always did hover a second or two behind the moment, as it were, and this is, after all, a recreation of that sepia-toned place, faultless in its execution. 

Faultless, though, doesn’t mean no room for microscopic improvements at the whim of an old man who’s more than a little bored and trying to avoid a certain Romulan’s incessant questioning for a portion of an afternoon. Picard strolls to the window. Ignoring the near sparkling, pastoral setting outside, he eyeballs the pattern of the fabric. It’s not his place to complain, but the colour is just very slightly... off. Steward doesn’t know, won’t ever know. Every inch of square shouldered fortitude of the Federation admiralty combined would wilt dare they make such a complaint to _that_ beacon of fussy perfection. 

Hence Picard’s attempt on the sly at home decor.

“Computer, I’d like to make an adjustment to the currently running holo-program. Bring up the settings for me, please.” He wanders back to the desk and sits down.

_“There is currently 0.00002% free memory available for manual specifics outside of the default set, Admiral Picard.”_

Picard frowns. “A static environment shouldn’t be taking up that much space. What else is running?”

 _“Background customisation on a holonovel, title REDACTED, author REDACTED.”_ Two separate tones made of piercing white noise hammer his ears like a two hand punch. Picard winces. 

“Well, cancel it,” he demands.

A pause, then: _“Unable to comply. Deletion module requires coded passphrase. Unable to name REDACTED. Suggest play through to expunge cache, followed by interrogation of the crew.”_

Now the computer’s getting sassy. Not unusual on this ship. He’s going to have to put on his detective kit and do some subtle prodding in order to get to the bottom of this.

Picard massages his forehead and leans back with a sigh. “Fine. Play it then,” he says. “View mode only, though. I don’t want to get shot at...”

A moment when nothing happens, then like a creeping tide half of the holosuite slowly melts away, while at the same time, in tiny text at the bottom of his desk terminal, the following appears:

Captain Diaz and the Fortunate Five

aka. Cris Rios’s Nightmare Fuel

by Anonymous

Picard watches, curiosity bubbling, trepidation rising, as La Sirena--

_La Sirena has gone dark. Emergency lighting blinks in alcoves down the length of the ship, while on the bridge, shadowed behind busily scrolling holo-screens, five figures are softly illuminated. The captain, his navigator, and security officer are all seated. To one side stand the doctor and engineer. The atmosphere is tense but workmanlike, a sense of assuredness and ease. They’ve done this before. Ahead in the distance, past a wide band of stars, the rings of a Class K planet shear over the unwelcoming black._

_A large vessel approaches from the port side, slows. It dwarfs the small Kaplan F17 ten times over._

_But the speed freighter is rugged, agile, and beholden to no-one._

_“Capitán Diaz, we’re being hailed.”_

_There’s barely any movement from the centre chair before the reply comes, gruff, a voice of steel in the dark. “On screen.”_

_“Well, look who showed up to a corral. Been a long time, Chris.”_

_“Not long enough. Thought I left your sorry ass in a burning hull on Kaleek 5.” A click as the lighter shoots a short wad of flame. A drag of the cigar, smoke whispering blue. Diaz shifts slightly, betraying not an inch of give in his expression. This is a captain who takes no fools. Not to bed, not to his grave..._

_The face on screen scowls knowingly. A hint of a smile, too. Grating the nerves. “Guess my colleague did her job well, then. You were always one for blondes--”_

_BLINK!_

_“Goodness me! You will insist on relaying guests to our fine waters and not inform me to bring the tea things afoot! And why is it so dark in here? No wonder we’re the laughing stock of the quadrant, sir! Lights!”_

_In an instant every light in the ship switches on. Through the blinding shock comes the sound of a trolley being wheeled squeakily towards the bridge._

_And with it, its driver: Bob, the Emergency Hospitality Hologram._

_The crew springs to life._

_“Make mine milky, please, cabin master! I haven’t had a mite of sustenance all day.”_

_“As you wish, Ernest dear...”_

_The engineer rubs his hands. “Ooh, might there be shortbread by any chance, Bob? I’ve a wee hankerin’ for a finger or two.”_

_“Yes, Howard. And Dick, I have your favourites here, the jam specials. Plum this time.” The sound of saucers being rattled fills the air as the bridge crew make collective murmurs of appreciation. All but the captain, who sits still and stony as a threatening storm. Sensing a bristle of contrariness in his midst, the aproned hologram looks over, eyebrows raised in twin curves. “Any sugar for your coffee, Captain Diaz? Something to calm burnished nerves while negotiations with your friend here are smoothed over?”_

_A moment passes, all eyes locked on the two, including the guest on-screen – will the storm break? Diaz takes the cup._

_“Thank you, Bob,” he says, with a smile._

“Computer, hold!”

“Holonovel paused.”

With only a slight wince of apprehension Picard approaches the figure of Captain Rios. Or Diaz, as this one is apparently named. He looks similar but strangely unlike the ex Starfleet officer Picard has gotten to know over the past year. Here he is dressed in black from head to toe, but unlike his usual utilitarian slash casual fare, this is tailored almost like a uniform. 

But that’s not what’s wrong, what thrums with unease in the depths of the admiral’s stomach. It’s the fact that the man is smiling, actually smiling, at his hologram.

Picard steps back. Somebody has been drawing on a creative energy made of chaos, he thinks, slightly aghast. 

“Bugger the curtains,” he says aloud, looking down at the captain, “I need to find out who wrote _you_.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Next: Cris finds out there is yet another version of himself, and drops a swear.


	2. Euripides Sits Among Us

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Picard unleashes his inner Poirot and gets nowhere.

“Computer, resume playback.”

Picard waits, braced for the story to continue, for Diaz to fold to the enemy or some other overworked plot point to be delivered. But after what feels like an indulgently long tea break in the middle of hostile negotiations, during which everybody is quietly munching on petite fours and chatting in inaudible low tones like background actors waiting around between takes, the scene abruptly ends and the cozied brown tones of his chateau study reappear. He can almost hear the old fashioned whirl of a film reel juddering to an end.

Well, that was wholly unsatisfying. What to do now? He toys with the idea of a series of discreet inquiries with the crew (is his Dixon Hill outfit stored in his personal files?) before deciding this somewhat indulgent feeding of his curiosity isn’t worth the shriek of laughter he’ll no doubt endure from Raffi, probably in multiples. 

He knocks his fingers on the desk. He stands up only to sit back down, thoughts chugging along like the well-oiled cogs they are (well, a facsimile of, but let’s not go there). To snoop or not to snoop. Picard knows the answer.

He’s saved from further cliches when the door chimes. There’s a muffled, “Hey, Admiral, you in there?” which becomes clearer as Rios walks in without being asked. The man looks about as bored as he sounds. He stands on the threshold, lighter in hand.

 _And thus the players come_... Picard smiles, waving a hand to the seat opposite. 

“Just the person I wanted to talk to.”

Rios slumps into the chair. “Am I? Good. I wouldn’t normally say this but talk away. Please. I’m sat between two of my so-called crew who are intent on playing a day long game of flirting across the console. And I’m talking long, _long_ , dug in the trenches endurance with a guaranteed explosion at the end. It’s like third wheel city in there. I need a break.”

Picard nods with some sympathy. He’s happy for Raffi and Seven but god knows this is a small ship and really, awkwardly, hands behind one’s eyes really _feels_ it sometimes. And a captain is still a captain, whether there be pips on the collar or a tatty vest smudged with ash. What a old curmudgeon in his twilight years wouldn’t give for some Starfleet regulations to toss about. Ignoring the fact that all he’d likely achieve there would be to become the recipient of the world’s most expansive eyeroll from his former XO, and probably more laughter. 

Well, that’s in Rios’s court now, he thinks. No wonder the grey hairs in his beard are multiplying.

A ding in his head signals end time to distracted musing. He’s got a mystery to solve.

“Now, I was just here minding my own business, looking to make some very slight alterations to--” Here Picard stops, imagining, as his eyes turn to the captain, the hospitality version of said face falling like a pup told no to a walk and a treat were he to finish that sentence. “Well, never mind the why. But I stumbled on something, and if you would be so kind as to indulge me...” 

Rios’s eyes narrow. Picard speaks quickly. “Computer, resume from the beginning.” When nothing happens he adds, in his most commanding tone, and through slightly gritted teeth, “Computer, I can’t _say_ the title, I’m trying to avoid the redacted screeching.” 

“What is this?” asks Rios, leaning forward in his chair, gaze phaser-lined to Picard and looking not unlike like his fictional twin, Diaz.

Then the room disappears as, once again, _La Sirena goes dark..._

Rios is silent throughout the whole thing. When the end rolls around (abrupt or anticlimactic, Picard has yet to decide, after all, everyone’s a critic), he says nothing. On the other side of the desk Picard dares not move, until his back begins to complain and he has to break the heavy pause by shifting very slightly. One could argue that waiting for the brooding freighter captain to unleash a shout or a squeak is almost as cinematically compelling. 

Meanwhile, across the mahogany expanse, the silence continues. Until it doesn’t.

“Thank you, Bob? Thank you, _Bob?”_

“You think it needs a rewrite?” asks Picard.

The captain jerks upright. He paces to the window and back, unlit cigar a sabre like prop between thumb and fist as he gestures to Picard, eyes flashing. 

“Do I think it needs a rewrite? Oh, let’s see. Maybe to ‘ _Listen, you hopped up dish mop, you can take your jammy whatsits and go fu--_ ’” Picard clears his throat and Rios slams his butt onto the overstuffed couch and frowns into his beard. “Well, you get the idea.”

“So I take it this isn’t your doing?”

He receives a look withering enough to melt titanium. 

“Eh? No! This is self-indulgent fantasy and I don’t appreciate being used as an actor unwilling unless somebody’s slipping some latinum into my pocket at the end of it.” Rios stops to pick at the seam on his trousers. There’s a slight pause before he glances up at Picard, voice a little less petulant, and asks, “Is there any more?”

Picard does his best not to smile. “Not that I know of. I’ve tried digging in the coding but this is more Raffi’s area, and...” He snaps his fingers. “Raffi! That’s the ticket. Send her in, would you, please.”

Here some amusement at last tweaks a smile from Rios. “School principal time. Okay, I get it, it’s kind of a boring leg, this side of the job. You’re in investigating mode. Well, as long as I don’t have to watch that garbage dump again, fine by me. I’ll go play swapsies.”

The captain exits the stage. Picard laces his fingers together, listening to muffled voices through the bulkhead as instructions are relayed. Not thirty seconds later, per his wishes, angry feet swipe through the door. 

“What?”

“What?” Picard repeats. Raffi’s hands go to hip. She’s well peeved-off, he thinks. Might be onto a winner here, worked to his advantage.

“We’re in the middle of...” Her eyes twitch. “Of...”

“Long, boring flight, I hear.” He smiles. “Then you’ve all the time in the world to help out an old man.”

Raffi sits down unhappily. “You’re wearing that senior citizen card to a raggedy edge, JL.” She throws him a look and sighs. “Okay, fine! What is it?”

“Computer...”

A few minutes later, and:

_“Well, look who showed up to a corral. Been a long time, Chris.”_

Raffi snorts. “Chris!” She takes out a hand held device and without asking swips the data from Picard’s desk terminal to her screen. “No wonder he looked like a sad bunnycorn when he came trudging back to the bridge. These names are messed up. I love it.”

Bob the hologram is wheeling his trolley with all the tunnel vision of a top-tier tactical flyer pilot when Raffi puts down the device and turns back to Picard. “Where’d you stumble across this? A secret holonovel? Please tell me our favourite brooding introvert is the author.”

Picard shrugs. “He flat out denies it.” 

She shakes her head, grinning as the EHH multitasks with a battalion of tea things. She ticks ideas off on her fingers. “Agnes, well, I wouldn’t put it past her if she was extra bored and wanted to see what Cris looked like in _that_ outfit. Seven, just no. Flat out no. Totally inefficient use of time and resources. Soji... eh, maybe? Elnor... pfft, if it was the kid we’d be looking at a dozen doppelgangers of your shiny head. It’s gotta be one of the holos.” A flash of teeth as she tips her head at Picard. “Unless the mysterious ghost writer is you, and you’re just on a serious detective kick and are supplying your own material to chew on.”

Picard huffs. “I’m very slightly lacking in entertainment today, I won’t deny it, but even my ego doesn’t balloon out that much.” He gives Raffi a look with enough weight to mirror all the top brass in the fleet. “Shiny head, _please_.”

“Sorry.”

They watch the rest in silence until the holonovel ends. Raffi blinks. “That’s it? Where’s the rest of it? Who’s this guy they’re fighting?”

“I’ve no idea. There’s no more on file.”

Raffi taps the arm of the couch. “Well, that’s disappointing. Look, JL, far as I see it, you just need to herd everyone in here and do your Poirot shtick, see if the accused gets all shifty or turns blue or something.” She gets up. “Actually, don’t even think about it, I’m taking point on this. Wait there.”

Before he can say a word the ops officer is practically skipping out of the holosuite. 

“Raffi, no--”

Too late. She’s gone. A small dread fills his stomach. All he’d wanted was a quiet afternoon’s sleuthing, a relaxed interrogation or three, maybe a break in between to enjoy, like the mysterious characters, a pot of earl grey and slice of something lemony drizzed of his own.

Alas, this is La Sirena. This is Raffi, and Rios, and Elnor. This is the best and the rest and a crew of wide faring personalities living in an ad-hoc summer space camp.

Picard is too poised to actually thump his head onto the desk, but mentally he’s there. 

“Okay, Enoch and Emmet are holding fort on the bridge. I bribed them with the promise of holo-popcorn,” says Raffi, leading the crew in through the door.

Picard sighs, gets up, and waves Elnor over to help arrange the furniture. It’s a good thing they’re no longer all newly acquainted, he thinks, watching the silent song and dance play out as everybody finds somewhere to sit. Elnor has drawn up a chair and squeezed in beside him behind the desk, making up for his obliviousness for personal space with a look of eagerness that melts Picard heart, just a little. On the armchair Soji sits comfortably with her legs tucked beneath her. The others are packed in sardine-like on the couch, their expressions spanning from left to right as they are so arranged, being impassive (Seven), knowingly gleeful (Raffi), softly smiling curiosity (Agnes), to please, put me in the airlock regret (Rios).

Rios hasn’t noticed, or noticed too late and doesn’t care, or has no feeling left at all to expel an emotion (Picard suspects the latter), but the rest of the holograms are here as well. And now everybody is looking at him, waiting. 

Picard blinks. “This was Raffi’s idea, and I’m sorry.”

“Are you shirking responsibility already, JL?” Raffi’s grin is wide. She nudges Seven with her hip. Seven angles herself on the armrest and offers a small smile, which drifts from Raffi to Picard. 

“Yes! This is getting silly now.”

“Oh, come on, you’re not the only one bored. Let’s have a little home movie night... uh, afternoon.”

On Raffi’s other side, Agnes raises a hand. 

“Will somebody tell me what’s going on? Is it exciting?”

“No,” mutters Rios, head lolling against the back of the couch.

Picard glares at Raffi. “Honestly, this is making a mountain out of a... a very small hill.”

“You’re the one who started it!” says Raffi.

“Yes and I should have strapped myself to the chair on the bridge or just stayed in my quarters! I thought my own curiosity was at a level but you people are insatiable. I had some delusions of having a small mystery to solve during a slightly dreary afternoon with nothing much going on and the universe for once not trying to blow us to pieces, but this preamble alone tells me without a doubt that Euripides does _not_ sit among us! Computer, play holonovel.” 

Beside him, in a very small voice, Elnor asks, “Who’s Euripides?” 

The room goes dark. Picard sighs. “An individual whose revered plots and characters we are absolutely not about to watch.”

“Oh, good!” says Elnor, missing the point as usual.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Next: fingers are pointed, the playwright is uncovered, and blushes are had.


End file.
